Update 38 Systems Preview

[Andu_Indorin]

Melee Power:

The Melee Power in the Cores of each Epic Destiny have been adjusted to give an overall boost to melee in Epics:
Fatesinger: +10 Melee Power per Core.
Grandmaster of Flowers: +10 Melee Power per Core
Shadowdancer: +10 Melee Power per Core
Fury of the Wild: +6 Melee Power per Core
Primal Avatar: +10 Melee Power per Core
Divine Crusader: +3 Melee Power per Core
Unyelding Sentinel: +5 Melee Power per Core
Legendary Dreadnaught: unchanged

That certainly looks like a quick fix for melee players in Epics.

What about a fix for the Heroic Levels. Will we have to wait a year or more for some balance there? The LFMs are dominated by "Life Grinders" in uber-blasting/casting mode. That does not leave much for heroic melees to do other than strike at empty air.

[Andu_Indorin]

Items:

The base damage of the Duality handwraps has been changed to 1d6+3. The base damage of other Ravenloft-era handwraps and collars is now 1d6+2.

I'd like to be the first to request a SALE on Filigree/Sentient Augment removers in the very near future! I have other toons that might be able to better use some filigrees that my Monk currently employs.

[ValariusK]

Melee Power:

The Melee Power in the Cores of each Epic Destiny have been adjusted to give an overall boost to melee in Epics:
Fatesinger: +10 Melee Power per Core.
Grandmaster of Flowers: +10 Melee Power per Core
Shadowdancer: +10 Melee Power per Core
Fury of the Wild: +6 Melee Power per Core
Primal Avatar: +10 Melee Power per Core
Divine Crusader: +3 Melee Power per Core
Unyelding Sentinel: +5 Melee Power per Core
Legendary Dreadnaught: unchanged

That certainly looks like a quick fix for melee players in Epics.

What about a fix for the Heroic Levels. Will we have to wait a year or more for some balance there? The LFMs are dominated by "Life Grinders" in uber-blasting/casting mode. That does not leave much for heroic melees to do other than strike at empty air.

This isn't really a boost for melees in the epic levels. See, Legendary dreadnaught is +88 Melee power in epics (+18 base from cores, and +70 from that blitz that people build to keep maxed all the time when it matters). LD also has lots of other good stuff (like +1 crit multiple on 19-20, 50% damage on helpless foes, plenty of buffs, etc).
Presently all the other destinies are seriously inferior from a mechanics perspective to LD. It's so much superior that even most classes the do ranged do LD. It's quite annoying because LD is a BAD quality of life destiny (it is a pain in the ass to keep blitz up the bajillion buffs) and a total no group support destiny.

After this change, Shadowdancer will be +60 vs the 88 of LD, making it PROBABLY about equal mechanically for melee rogue builds and possibly for dex based rangers who are equipped to use its 6 sneak attack dice to advantage. Shadowdancer is also a really good quality of life destiny.
Fatesinger might actually be used a fair bit by swashbucklers now (+60 vs +88 again).
GMOF might get used by monks more now, but I think monks are going to go into eclipse after this patch again. Typical builds of monk are getting like 35 less MP now.
Not sure about the new primal avatar, but +60 melee power might appeal to rangers and druids.
The unifying thread here is it used to be something like, compare +24 or so MP to getting +88 from LD, which made LD win pretty much every single time. Now it'll be comparing +60 to +88, which will admit a lot more trade-offs than before.

[jakeelala]

Tell what you think is backwards in that sentence. Does that not sound broken to you? Yep, melee power applying to ranged attacks sounds broken to me.

What?

[Valyn]

Epic Destinies

The Melee Power in the Cores of each Epic Destiny have been adjusted to give an overall boost to melee in Epics:
Fatesinger: +10 Melee Power per Core.
Grandmaster of Flowers: +10 Melee Power per Core
Shadowdancer: +10 Melee Power per Core
Fury of the Wild: +6 Melee Power per Core
Primal Avatar: +10 Melee Power per Core
Divine Crusader: +3 Melee Power per Core
Unyelding Sentinel: +5 Melee Power per Core
Legendary Dreadnaught: unchanged

In what world does it make any sense for the bard tree to have a higher melee power boost than the barbarian?

It makes no sense at all to me either. Two destinies that are specifically for melee focused toons get the least amount of melee power. Legendary dreadnaught only gets +3 per core. I don't get it.

[Qhualor]

It makes no sense at all to me either. Two destinies that are specifically for melee focused toons get the least amount of melee power. Legendary dreadnaught only gets +3 per core. I don't get it.

my theory is that it has to do with the amount of MP out of the 40 builds that Steelstar tested that they could get from enhancements, etc and in the EDs. I'm too lazy to do the math if that's true.

either that or to make off destinies suck less.

[Avocado]

It makes no sense at all to me either. Two destinies that are specifically for melee focused toons get the least amount of melee power. Legendary dreadnaught only gets +3 per core. I don't get it.

It makes sense. Dreadnaught and divine crusader have the most amount of melee power still. Ld has +82 potential and divine crusader has 68 potential plus doublestrike and spell power. Other trees. Now have 60 meaning they are still behind the others but maybe people will actually run in them. Melee power is almost everything these days. Melee power or go home.

[jakeelala]

It makes no sense at all to me either. Two destinies that are specifically for melee focused toons get the least amount of melee power. Legendary dreadnaught only gets +3 per core. I don't get it.

end game is all about DPS, so if an ED won't be useless, you need to do DPS. You could argue other roles like tanking and CC are important, but there are so many non-ED ways to CC it's irrelevant, and tanking has a destiny called Unyielding Sentinel. So...

MP it is.

I am arguing we need RP in other destinies for the exact same reason, they are worthless today and would be slightly less worthless if they offered even sort of competitive DPS options.

[Andu_Indorin]

This isn't really a boost for melees in the epic levels. See, Legendary dreadnaught is +88 Melee power in epics (+18 base from cores, and +70 from that blitz that people build to keep maxed all the time when it matters). LD also has lots of other good stuff (like +1 crit multiple on 19-20, 50% damage on helpless foes, plenty of buffs, etc).
Presently all the other destinies are seriously inferior from a mechanics perspective to LD. It's so much superior that even most classes the do ranged do LD. It's quite annoying because LD is a BAD quality of life destiny (it is a pain in the ass to keep blitz up the bajillion buffs) and a total no group support destiny. ...

My choice terms may have been poor. By "quick fix", I was sort of implying a "band aid" instead of tourniquet. I suppose I am assuming that all this love going to casters is to provide a bench mark for rebalancing melee toons sometime next year. And maybe even ranged toons as well.

[Propane]

Please add Ranged power to these destinies too, since you're taking away Vistani melee power to ranged attacks

Vistani Weapon Versatility now applies only to daggers and throwing daggers.

[jakeelala]

Vistani Weapon Versatility now applies only to daggers and throwing daggers.

Was what I wrote unclear? Throwing daggers are not a viable strategy, so I'm asking for Ranged Power is destinies to make them more attractive versus LD or to a lesser degree, Fury.

[SerPounce]

The same logic would seem to apply to ranged, but concern is probably that Shiradi and SD are already pretty good for throwers with their super high attack speed. It's at least a lot closer than it is for melee.

I would love to try something other than LD on my artificer. It's such a dull destiny for an otherwise interesting character. But I get that there are some ranged builds out there that are at the very top of the meta combining some of the highest DPS with ranged survivbility and they don't want to do anything that would buff those further.

[Feal]

I also agree on ranged power in ED like shiradi, maybe also shadow dancer.

[edrein]

Was what I wrote unclear? Throwing daggers are not a viable strategy, so I'm asking for Ranged Power is destinies to make them more attractive versus LD or to a lesser degree, Fury.

Throwing daggers are not viable because throwing weapons don't have a feat that provides parity to Shuriken Expertise. Don't try to skew the data for your personal goals there Mr. Shuriken-thrower. I agree to an extent that ranged power should be bumped slightly, the issue however is that bump benefits shurikens above all else and that is why there will be no bump.

Instead you should campaign for a throwing master/expertise whatever you wish to call the feat. That way throwing daggers become viable, as do any other niche throwing builds beyond shurikens.

That's just my two cents on the subject.

[Qhualor]

Instead you should campaign for a throwing master/expertise whatever you wish to call the feat. That way throwing daggers become viable, as do any other niche throwing builds beyond shurikens.

there we go. <insert neon flashing lights>

[PermaBanned]

Henshin Mystic core Melee Power has been adjusted from (10/10/10/10/10/25) to (3/3/3/3/3/15) to bring it closer to other Enhancement trees.

So you're still moving forward with your plan to hit your "lowest performing Monk build we tried" that is "almost certainly not the best THf build in practice" the hardest while nerfing your highest performing outlier Monk build the least?

[Steelstar]

So you're still moving forward with your plan to hit your "lowest performing Monk build we tried" that is "almost certainly not the best THf build in practice" the hardest while nerfing your highest performing outlier Monk build the least?

We are still moving forward with the planned changes to bring the overall DPS of the Monk class closer to analogous builds in other classes, yes. Which does include Henshin Mystic.

We've been looking at feedback posts and Lamannia play + build data, talking through peoples' points and various edge cases. We've also been playing through content on Lamannia using specific builds and combinations that people have raised concerns about.

So far, the adjustments appear to be working as expected and bringing Melee Monks in their various forms closer to similar builds in other classes. While it's certainly still possible to make an underperforming Monk build (it was before these changes as well), everything we've seen so far suggests that Monk builds that are presently useful will continue to be so (Which, again, does include Henshin Mystic).

We'll be keeping an eye on further feedback on the Forums and (especially) in the remainder of U38 Lamannia Previews, and as we've stated before we intend to take a more focused look at Two Handed Fighting sometime after U38. We've discussed (and will continue discussing) various proposed alternatives (making HM's melee power staff-only, etc.). At the moment, though, we believe that our proposed changes are effective at bringing us closer to our overall goal of a better-balanced Melee ecosystem and are still planning on moving forward with them.

If people are interested in providing further focused feedback, we'd be most interested in seeing feedback from Lamannia play (now or in our second Preview coming soon) and in-depth comparisons of Henshin Mystic and Thief-Acrobat. (Ideally, Lamannia play feedback comparing those two, which would be the MOST useful, but that's a taller order. )

[Seikojin]

We are still moving forward with the planned changes to bring the overall DPS of the Monk class closer to analogous builds in other classes, yes. Which does include Henshin Mystic.

We've been looking at feedback posts and Lamannia play + build data, talking through peoples' points and various edge cases. We've also been playing through content on Lamannia using specific builds and combinations that people have raised concerns about.

So far, the adjustments appear to be working as expected and bringing Melee Monks in their various forms closer to similar builds in other classes. While it's certainly still possible to make an underperforming Monk build (it was before these changes as well), everything we've seen so far suggests that Monk builds that are presently useful will continue to be so (Which, again, does include Henshin Mystic).

We'll be keeping an eye on further feedback on the Forums and (especially) in the remainder of U38 Lamannia Previews, and as we've stated before we intend to take a more focused look at Two Handed Fighting sometime after U38. We've discussed (and will continue discussing) various proposed alternatives (making HM's melee power staff-only, etc.). At the moment, though, we believe that our proposed changes are effective at bringing us closer to our overall goal of a better-balanced Melee ecosystem and are still planning on moving forward with them.

If people are interested in providing further focused feedback, we'd be most interested in seeing feedback from Lamannia play (now or in our second Preview coming soon) and in-depth comparisons of Henshin Mystic and Thief-Acrobat. (Ideally, Lamannia play feedback comparing those two, which would be the MOST useful, but that's a taller order. )

I would love to, however the one character I have built to be used for test cannot be copied to lamannia. I used that character on the main server weekly or daily. But the last two or three times Lamannia was up, the character Toy wasn't available.

[SirShen]

I would love to, however the one character I have built to be used for test cannot be copied to lamannia. I used that character on the main server weekly or daily. But the last two or three times Lamannia was up, the character Toy wasn't available.

That might be because Toy is leader of a guild? Pass it over to an alt and Toy will then show up. I have this problem with my toon that is guild leader.

[PermaBanned]

We are still moving forward with the planned changes to bring the overall DPS of the Monk class closer to analogous builds in other classes, yes. Which does include Henshin Mystic.

We've been looking at feedback posts and Lamannia play + build data, talking through peoples' points and various edge cases. We've also been playing through content on Lamannia using specific builds and combinations that people have raised concerns about.

So far, the adjustments appear to be working as expected and bringing Melee Monks in their various forms closer to similar builds in other classes. While it's certainly still possible to make an underperforming Monk build (it was before these changes as well), everything we've seen so far suggests that Monk builds that are presently useful will continue to be so (Which, again, does include Henshin Mystic).

We'll be keeping an eye on further feedback on the Forums and (especially) in the remainder of U38 Lamannia Previews, and as we've stated before we intend to take a more focused look at Two Handed Fighting sometime after U38. We've discussed (and will continue discussing) various proposed alternatives (making HM's melee power staff-only, etc.). At the moment, though, we believe that our proposed changes are effective at bringing us closer to our overall goal of a better-balanced Melee ecosystem and are still planning on moving forward with them.

If people are interested in providing further focused feedback, we'd be most interested in seeing feedback from Lamannia play (now or in our second Preview coming soon) and in-depth comparisons of Henshin Mystic and Thief-Acrobat. (Ideally, Lamannia play feedback comparing those two, which would be the MOST useful, but that's a taller order. )

If I could instal & run the Lama client on my Mac natively I would. As is, that doesn't work out so well so I'll have to just wait and see how this all shakes out.

That said, it just doesn't make sense to me that the Handwrap outlier way-to-good performing build keeps the +Ws & all 25 of it's Capstone's Melee Power; while your worst Monk build needs it's Capestone's Melee Power halved. It's not just that I enjoy stick builds, nor that I have a thing against Handwrap builds (love 'em actually) that's got me buggered here. It's that the whole line of reasoning + baseline test results don't lead me to the conclusion that Henshin needs more/harder nerfs than Shintao. Just can't see a way to make sense of that.

(Though my stick build loving self is extra annoyed that with any reduction in stick DPS there's a consummate increase in how fast a Quarterstaff gets whittled down on /quest basis. Mobs take even longer to kill, sticks ware down just as fast. But as long as it's balanced, right?)